artificial intelligence
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New Apple ad does some voice-first education with The Rock and Siri
How do you teach people how to use an interface that’s invisible? That’s been the marketing communications problem for Apple since the day Siri became the first big mass-market voice assistant. They’ve taken stab after stab at it. The splash page that offers Siri suggestions if you activate it and don’t say anything. TV spots; tool tips; App Store promotions and… Read More
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Graphcore’s AI chips now backed by Atomico, DeepMind’s Hassabis
Is AI chipmaker Graphcore out to eat Nvidia’s lunch? Co-founder and CEO Nigel Toon laughs at that interview opener — perhaps because he sold his previous company to the chipmaker back in 2011. Read More
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Freshdesk owner Freshworks acquires Joe Hukum as it plans a move into chatbots
After raising $55 million last year to build its business beyond its existing help desk services, today Freshworks (the parent company of Freshdesk) has made an acquisition to help it fill out that strategy. The company has acquired Joe Hukum, a startup out of India that offers a platform for businesses to build their own chatbots. I’ve asked, but the companies are not revealing any terms… Read More
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Microsoft unveils a Cortana-powered thermostat
The latest addition to the smart thermostat space is a product that includes Microsoft’s Cortana virtual assistant. We’re all familiar with the rise of the internet-enabled thermostats, thanks to the development of companies like Nest, and now Microsoft is entering the space after it partnered with Johnson Controls to develop a product called GLAS. The rather stunning looking… Read More
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AI data-monopoly risks to be probed by UK parliamentarians
The UK’s upper house of parliament is asking for contributions to an enquiry into the socioeconomic and ethical impacts of artificial intelligence technology. Among the questions the House of Lords committee will consider are how can the data-based monopolies of some large corporations, and the ‘winner-takes-all’ economics associated with them, be addressed? Read More
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Samsung’s Bixby assistant finally comes to the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in the US
After much delay, Samsung has begun rolling out its Bixby smart assistant to users in the U.S. The company said today that an update will allow owners of the Galaxy S8 and S8+ to gain voice capabilities for the service. Read More
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Yandex open sources CatBoost, a gradient boosting machine learning library
Artificial intelligence is now powering a growing number of computing functions, and today the developer community today is getting another AI boost, courtesy of Yandex. Today, the Russian search giant — which, like its US counterpart Google, has extended into a myriad of other business lines, from mobile to maps and more — announced the launch of CatBoost, an open source… Read More
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Roborace DevBot learns during laps in NYC
The sleek, low-slung driverless Roborace car was on display in New York City for the Formula E races this weekend, but it was the workhorse DevBot that took to the track. You can recognize DevBot by its bubble-like cockpit, where a human sits ready to take the wheel if the autonomous car needs a literal hand. Read More
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Crunch Network
Does Silicon Valley have a moral responsibility to stop developing robots?
Should Silicon Valley exercise its moral authority to stop developing this job-killing technology? Andrew McAfee, author of “The Second Machine Age” and the just published “Machine, Platform, Crowd” says absolutely not. Over the next fifty years the economy will become “massively automated”, but at the same time society will have had half a century to… Read More
Latest Crunch Report
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Cortica teaches autonomous vehicles with unsupervised learning
Cortica is moving into mobility by opening an automotive branch for its AI technology. The key, according to the company, is in the use of unsupervised learning that allows an autonomous system to process data and figure out its environment. For those just dipping their toes into the artificial intelligence pool, supervised machine learning is when the AI is given a set of examples and what… Read More
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Microsoft creates an AI research lab to challenge Google and DeepMind
Microsoft has created a new research lab with a focus on developing general-purpose artificial intelligence technology, the company revealed today. The lab will be located at Microsoft’s Redmond HQ, and will include a team of more than 100 scientists working on AI, from areas including natural language processing, learning and perception systems. Read More
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I watched two robots chat together on stage at a tech event
I got a glimpse into the future world of our robot overlords today. It was nervy at times. I watched two robots go on stage at a tech event to “debate” the future of humanity with each other. The robots in question are Sophia and Han, and they belong to Hanson Robotics, a Hong Kong-based company that is developing and deploying artificial intelligence in humanoids. The duo took to… Read More
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Google acquires India’s Halli Labs, which was building AI tools to fix ‘old problems’
Some more M&A news in the world of artificial intelligence. Today it was made public that Google has acquired Halli Labs, a very young (its first public appearance was on May 22 of this year) startup based out of Bengaluru, India, that was focused on building deep learning and machine learning systems to address what it describes as “old problems.” The company says it will… Read More
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Microsoft launches AI for Earth to give $2M in services to environmental projects
After helping to launch the Partnership on AI with Google, Facebook and others; and doubling down on AI research, today Microsoft unveiled a new initiative that points to how it plans to target specific verticals in what can potentially be a very nebulous field — while also raising the public image of AI as some grow concerned about the implications of its encroaching influence. Today… Read More
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Gong, an AI-based language tool to help sales and customer service reps, nabs $20M
As artificial intelligence continues its spread into all aspects of computing, many believe that it will be the next big frontier in CRM. Today a startup called Gong.io underscores that trend: the Israeli startup, which has built a tool that uses natural language processing and machine learning to help train and suggest information to sales people and other customer service reps, has raised… Read More
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Anna Patterson talks Gradient Ventures, Google’s new AI fund
It’s been pretty obvious for a few months now, but Google has finally admitted that it’s running its own investment fund targeting machine intelligence startups. The fund will go by the name Gradient Ventures and provide capital, resources and education to AI-first startups. Read More
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Toyota launches venture capital fund targeting artificial intelligence startups
Toyota is the latest Fortune 500 company to launch an AI focused venture capital fund. The initial early-stage fund will deploy $100 million and operate as a subsidiary of the Toyota Research Institute. The automaker has strategically positioned itself as an ROI rather than strategic-focused fund — meaning that it aims to profit like any other VC firm. Read More
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Ethics and Governance AI Fund funnels $7.6M to Harvard, MIT and independent research efforts
A $27 million fund aimed at applying artificial intelligence to the public interest has announced the first targets of its beneficence: $7.9 million will be split unequally between MIT’s Media Lab, Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center and seven smaller research efforts around the world. Read More
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Crunch Network
Curious to crack the neural code? Listen carefully
Perhaps for the first time ever, our noggins have stolen the spotlight from our hips. The media, popular culture, science and business are paying more attention to the brain than ever. Billionaires want to plug into it. Scientists view neurodegenerative disease as the next frontier after cancer and diabetes, hence increased efforts in understanding the physiology of the brain. Read More
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H2O.ai’s Driverless AI automates machine learning for businesses
Driverless AI is the latest product from H2O.ai aimed at lowering the barrier to making data science work in a corporate context. The tool assists non-technical employees with preparing data, calibrating parameters and determining the optimal algorithms for tackling specific business problems with machine learning. Read More
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